HOLD-UP ALLEGATION MADE

Taranaki Daily News, 23 May 1934, Page 6

HOLD-UP ALLEGATION MADE

CASES BEGUN AT NAPIER COURT. INCIDENTS NEAR DANNEVIRKE. 'By Telegraph—Press Association. Hastings, Last Night. The trial opened in the Supreme Court at Napier this afternoon of Stanley Jordan Madden, Ronald Herbert Floyd, Robert Floyd and a juvenile whose name was ordered to be suppressed on a charge that on March 31 at Oringi, near Dannevirke, being armed with an offensive weapon, a six-chambered revolver, they assaulted with intent to rob W. J. Cochrane, R. G. Russell, and R. Ellingham. Alternative counts were robbery and assault. Cochrane gave evidence that he, Ellingham and Russell were returning by car from the Feilding races when they saw a man lying on the road. Cochrane stopped and when he was about to get out of the car a man appeared with a scarf about the lower half of his face and holding a gun which he pointed at the feet of the car’s occupants. Cochrane thought it was a hold-up and started the car and drove towards Dannevirke. As they drew away he heard a bang at the rear of the car and as he went farther another sound as if someone had thrown something at the car. He could not recognise the accused and he found no marks on the car. Similar evidence was given by the other car occupants and the court adjourned till to-morrow.